This invention relates to a removable fog lens attachment for an automotive headlight. The attachment comprises a colored transparent light filtering panel that is held onto a headlight by means of permanent magnets extending from the rear face of the panel. The magnets are oriented on the panel so as to register with an annular mounting frame associated with the headlight.
Fog lens attachments are shown in various patents. U.S. Pat. No. 2,530,685 to Davis et al and U.S. Pat. No. 2,544,378 to C. Cyr show fog lens panels attachable to automotive headlights through the use of suction cups carried on the rear faces of the panels.
The use of suction cups is believed to be disadvantageous in that heat generated by the headlight will tend to differentially expand the engaged surfaces so as to loosen the suction cup connection and degrade the suction cup material. The heat will also tend to expand any air contained within the suction cup, thus further weakening the connection. Also, the suction cups must be fairly large in order to develop a useful suction force. Large suction cups detract from the light-transmitting area of the headlight. Further, the glass surface must be clean in order for the suction cups to be effective against vibrational forces associated with a moving vehicle.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,539,819 shows a fog lens attachment that uses four rearwardly-extending spring clips for securing the attachment to an automotive headlight. Such clips can be used only when the headlight has an annular protruding rim structure that provides the necessary external shoulder for receiving hooked ends on the clips. Most modern automobiles have recessed headlights set back into the vehicle body, with an ornamental apertured chrome panel projecting forwardly beyond the headlight front faces. Ordinarily there is essentially no clearance between the headlight side surface and the adjacent surfaces of the ornamental apertured chrome panel. The automobile structure is such that the use of spring clips to retain a fog lens attachment on the front face of a headlight is usually not feasible.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,609,345 shows a fog lens attachment comprising a thin transparent cellophane sheet having a square outline, and a second transparent colored cellophane sheet having a circular outline. The two sheets are adhesively secured together. The circular sheet has a relatively small diameter compared to the side dimension of the square sheet, such that a peripheral surface of the square sheet is available for adhesive attachment to the mounting frame portion of the headlight.
One difficulty with the arrangement of U.S. Pat. No. 3,609,345 is that it is very difficult to precisely center the circular sheet on the headlight surface. The recessed nature of the headlights requires that the sheet assembly be pushed into the recess without a clear understanding of whether the circular sheet is precisely centered on the headlight. Another difficulty of the U.S. Pat. No. 3,609,345 arrangement is that if the circular sheet is even slightly off center relative to the face of the headlight, the headlight will appear to be misaligned relative to the headlight recess or the other headlights, thus detracting from the headlights appearance. Also, it is believed that the thin cellophane materials employed in the patented arrangement would tend to wrinkle, especially along border portions of the square sheet which must be folded to lie against inner side faces of the headlight bezel. Any wrinkling of the sheet materials will detract from the appearance of the headlight assembly.
The fog lens attachment of the present invention includes a rigid colored transparent panel having the same size and configuration as the headlight assembly so that it can fit into the recess in which the headlight is located. A number of permanent bar magnets are carried on the rear face of the panel for releasable engagement with the annular mounting frame that is used to mount the headlight within the recess in the automobile front end. The bar magnets magnetically lock onto the mounting frame to releasably attach the fog lens panel to the vehicle.
In some cases, the mounting frames for the headlights are formed of rigid plastic materials. It is contemplated that in such situations, strips of magnetically permeable material will be adhesively attached to the front faces of the plastic mounting frame to provide anchored surfaces suitable for magnetic interlock with the bar magnets carried by the fog lens panel.